So does everyone who loses get the day off?
Black Friday is a tricky subject when you work retail. On the one hand, when you work on Black Friday, you usually get time and a half, not to mention brownie points with your manager. On the other hand, it’s Black Friday. It’s a fiery cesspool of humanity at its absolute peak of madness. So basically your choices are time and half or madness. One retail chain that will likely have an interesting Black Friday is GameStop, what with the encroaching release of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. In lieu of deciding Black Friday time allocation the sensible way, though, it seems someone at GameStop corporate decided to channel their inner Caligula.
According to a report from The Gamer, GameStop released a company-wide announcement for an inter-location contest. Whichever location wins the contest will have ten additional working hours added to their schedule for the Black Friday sales event to be allocated at the manager’s discretion. Other prizes include a $100 gift card and an Amazon Echo, but obviously, that’s not what we’re focusing on here.
GameStop Is Having A TikTok Competition For Its Employees And One Of The Prizes Is 10 Extra Labor Hours During Black Friday https://t.co/YyzhLeWLMa pic.twitter.com/NGaCpL0KFq
— TheGamer (@thegamerwebsite) November 3, 2020
So how does one win this contest? Simple: managers just have to cajole their employees into creating a TikTok dance video. Specifically, GameStop wanted managers and employees to attempt the “#redwinechallenge,” TikTok’s current dance craze. GameStop’s event team posted a video on YouTube demonstrating the dance, which currently has a like-dislike ratio of 36 to 511.
As you may expect, asking your employees to dance for your amusement and resources is a bad look, especially considering said resources are working during Black Friday. Shortly after The Gamer posted their report, GameStop was inundated with media requests, prompting them to remove the announcement from their corporate website. Results for the contest were apparently going to be announced on Friday, but it is unclear at this point whether it’s even still happening.